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Big Chill, The
Columbia Pictures


8.5

based on 10 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 2 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for restricted, under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian

Starring Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, JoBeth Williams, Meg Tilly, and Jeff Goldblum

Good friends reunite for the funeral of a college pal. During the weekend that follows, they compare their 60's ideas with the harsh reality of their lives in the 80's, and discover that in a cold world, you need your friends to keep you warm. (Sony Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Barbara Benedek Lawrence Kasdan
DIRECTED BY:	Lawrence Kasdan
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: January 26, 1999 Theatrical: September 28, 1983
RUNNING TIME:	105 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

The New York Times Vincent Canby

The Big Chill represents the best of mainstream American film making. It's a reminder that the same people who turn out our megabuck fantasies are often capable of working even more effectively on the small, intimate scale of The Big Chill.

Time Richard Corliss

Indeed, the entire film is a kind of sock-hop benefit for Approaching Middle Age. This maturing generation never played Taps with such glamour or good humor. Play the music and let the big chill—the knowledge that "we're all alone out there, and we're going out there tomorrow"—melt away in the warmth of the feel-good movie of '83.

Empire Staff (Not Credited)

An entertaining look at the 80s embourgeoisement of 60s student activists steers skillfully between social satire and sentiment.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

And there's that perfect soundtrack, jammed with hit after timeless hit. So integral is the music to the heat of Chill that even a now-hackneyed scene like ensemble-dancing-while-cleaning-the-kitchen (to the Temptations' ''Ain't Too Proud to Beg'') takes on a glow far lovelier than the chore warrants -- as does this ingratiating, fake movie.

Boston Globe Michael Blowen

The Big Chill is not an ode to the '60s or '80s, but a touching, sincere account of boys and girls who became men and women. [30 Sep 1983, p.1]

TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)

In the final analysis, the film doesn't amount to much, except to provide a good opportunity for the fine ensemble cast to show off their talents.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The Big Chill is a splendid technical exercise. It has all the right moves. It knows all the right words. Its characters have all the right clothes, expressions, fears, lusts and ambitions. But there's no payoff and it doesn't lead anywhere. I thought at first that was a weakness of the movie. There also is the possibility that it's the movie's message.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Each member of the well-chosen cast not only creates a distinct character with unique and memorable resonances but also meshes these separate personalities to form as satisfying an example of ensemble acting as we are likely to see for quite some time to come.

Chicago Reader Dave Kehr

There is no place for depth or nuance in this slickly engineered complacency machine, which roars along at a single tone and pace, neatly dispelling every troubling intimation with a Mary Tyler Moore one-liner and solving all its conflicts with tricks of rhetoric.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott

When The Big Chill is busy being funny, it's a great comedy, but when it goes for depth, it hits bottom an inch down. [30 Sep 1983, p.E1]

The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Domo R. gave it an8:
It may have been a "fake" movie but it really distills a certain trenchant mindset of those that lived through the 1960's and pretended they changed things. They didn't. They just did things out of their own curiosity and self interest.

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Big Chill, The Columbia Pictures

Big Chill, The
Columbia Pictures